


Guaranteed To Blow Your Mind

by UniverseOnHerShoulders



Series: Prompt Fills [66]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, Light Angst, Skaro, United Nations Intelligence Taskforce (Doctor Who)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:46:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27560968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UniverseOnHerShoulders/pseuds/UniverseOnHerShoulders
Summary: Summoned to a meeting with Kate Stewart, the Doctor and Clara receive a mission with a terrifying objective: returning to Skaro. But what will they find there? Or, more worryingly, who?
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/Clara Oswin Oswald
Series: Prompt Fills [66]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/585397
Comments: 8
Kudos: 23





	Guaranteed To Blow Your Mind

“Sorry,” Clara says for the tenth time that morning, as they hasten across Tower Green in the light spring rain, accompanied by a soldier who – in Clara’s professional opinion – doesn’t look old enough to shave, but is clutching his rifle with such intensity that his knuckles have turned white, as though she and the Doctor are some kind of threat. “Remind me why we’re here?”

“Because Kate sent me an email.”

“I thought UNIT were defunded following Brexit,” Clara frowns, looking around them as though the pigeons congregating on the back of a nearby bench might lend some clues as to UNIT’s financial status. They don’t; they simply look back at her with something akin to arrogance. “Big problem. Kate was really pissed off about it. That definitely happened. They got shut down.”

“Yeah, well, urm… strictly speaking they still _are_ shut down.”

“So, why are we here and how is Kate still working?”

“Because they’re being privately funded by an independent backer instead.”

“Are you going to tell me who that backer is?”

“Not while Boy Wonder is here, no, and definitely not while he’s holding a gun.”

The soldier scowls at them but says nothing, merely stops outside the nondescript doorway that leads to the subterranean space housing UNIT’s headquarters and gestures that they should show themselves in. Clara raises her eyebrows at his distinct lack of manners – or even speech – but says nothing; she doesn’t fancy invoking his wrath, particularly not while there’s witnesses.

“Bloody hell,” Clara mutters, as the Doctor waves the psychic paper in front of the entry keypad and the door clicks open. They cross the threshold and the door swings shut behind them, plunging them into darkness, and they both blink hard as their eyes adjust to the relative gloom and the chill of the ancient space. “He was a laugh a minute.”

“Don’t forget that UNIT soldiers have several reasons not to like you,” the Doctor points out, groping around in the darkness for the top of the stairs. Clara simply stands staring at her in bafflement as the Doctor descends the first few steps and then stops. “What? Come on, Kate’s expecting us.”

“What do you mean, they have several reasons not to like me?” Clara frowns, her pride hurt by the accusation. “What did I ever do to them?”

“I mean, other than the fact that someone who looked exactly like you murdered quite a lot of their troops-”

“That was Bonnie, not me!”

“-and then got a job here bossing them about, there’s also the fact that you are technically still very much dead.”

“That seems very… dead-ist. Don’t be so dead-ist.”

“Honestly, you get used to being legally dead eventually. I did. It makes turning up at parties a lot more fun; you’re always guaranteed a fight or a snog. Sometimes both.”

“Who did you end up snogging at parties while you were, and there’s some inverted commas here, ‘dead’?” Clara asked curiously, allowing the Doctor to take her by the hand and lead her down the stairs into UNIT’s base. She shoots a smirk at the back of the Doctor’s head. “Should I be jealous?”

“Probably not, because I was usually the snoggee, not the snogger. You become very intriguing, apparently, when you’re ‘dead.’ Lots of people want to make sure you’re still alive… with their lips… and their hands… and… well, it would’ve been politer to just _ask_ me, in a lot of cases. A lot less fun, perhaps, but politer.”

Reaching level ground, they find themselves in a long, industrial-grey corridor, and strip lighting flickers into life along the edges of the floor, illuminating their path. The Doctor sets off in one direction before Clara snags hold of her by the hood, yanks her back around and points the opposite way with resignation, and the Doctor grimaces as she visibly adjusts her mental coordinates.

“Kate’s office,” Clara reminds her. “And I will definitely hit her if she snogs you. Or me, actually.”

“I don’t think Kate has ever really been the snogging type.”

“She must have snogged Jaq at least once… and her ex-husband.”

“Don’t mention the ex-husband,” the Doctor’s eyes widen warningly. “The walls have ears around here.”

“Indeed they do,” a voice booms from up ahead, and Kate steps out of her office and surveys them with a wicked grin. “What about my ex-husband?”

“Nothing,” Clara says quickly, her cheeks flushing as she surveys her old friend, who is dressed – as ever – in a power suit and looks entirely unruffled that Clara is stood in front of her, very much not-dead. “Since when did you send emails?”

“Since it seemed more secure than a phone call. Never know who might be listening in.”

Clara thinks about objecting to this but is then ushered into Kate’s office with the Doctor, and the door slams shut behind them.

“Thanks for coming,” Kate flings herself down in her desk chair, runs her hands through her hair and lets out a long sigh, ruffling the edges of several sheets of paper strewn across the surface of her desk in haphazard piles, each bearing a different colour sticky note. “I don’t really know where to begin.”

“Maybe at the beginning?” the Doctor suggests.

“A very good place to start,” Clara adds, trying to resist the urge to sing and instead perching on the edge of a chair opposite Kate. “Although first, you can tell me how the hell you’ve secured funding, because the Doctor is being very… mysterious about it. I thought the government pulled the plug on your budget after Brexit.”

“They did, and the Doctor _would_ be vague about it,” Kate shoots the Doctor an exasperated look. “Because she doesn’t approve.”

“It’s not that I don’t approve!” the Doctor protests, taking a seat opposite Kate and immediately crossing her legs underneath her, child-like. “It’s that I don’t think he should be-”

“Who’s ‘he’?”

“She really hasn’t told you?” Kate looks from the Doctor to Clara with her eyebrows raised. “Jack Harkness has been funding us for the last few years; since Brexit, really. One of the perks of his ah… _condition_ , is that he’s banked a fairly substantial fortune over the years; made some good investment choices and avoided some bad ones. He’s been paying for everything; we’re not technically UNIT anymore, but the cost of rebranding… you have no idea. Seemed easier to keep things as they were rather than splash out on new uniforms and such.”

“If you’re not technically-”

“We’re a subsidiary of Torchwood now,” Kate beams, while the Doctor scowls. “Honestly, the merger makes a lot of sense. They’ve got access to all kinds of things we don’t… information, tech, weaponry, databases – and they’re not bound by the same ethics principles as we were when we were part of the MOD; they’re not averse to hacking or espionage. Doctor, don’t make that face at me – you know we won’t use any of the weapons unless-”

“Don’t try to make excuses.”

Kate sighs heavily, pausing for a moment, then continues: “Anyway, it’s really facilitated some positive change; we’ve pooled our resources, our funding, our expertise, and we’re working in a far more efficient manner now. We think we’ve developed a really effective counter-invasion strategy should there be any repeat of… well, the exact thing that seems to happen wherever you turn up, Doctor.”

“When have I invaded you?!”

“Oh, not you… but your enemies tend to follow you, don’t they? So we’ve got a new counter-invasion plan; we’ve done a lot of work on neuro-linguistic programming and intelligence gathering, and we’re very proud of it. It involves minimal militaristic intervention – see? We do listen to you sometimes – and advocates for early, peaceful intervention to avoid any risk of violence… from either side.”

“Is that why I’m here?” the Doctor asks, looking mistrustfully around them, as though a rack of weapons might appear on the wall at any moment. “So you can show off your new strategies? Get some gold stars?”

Kate’s expression sours a little, but she ploughs on: “No, you’re here about a separate matter. It’s not strictly within our remit – it doesn’t involve Earth. But we’ve been hearing a lot of talk via our interstellar intelligence channels of the Kaleds.”

“The what?” Clara asks, looking to the Doctor for clarity, and she’s surprised to find the Doctor’s hands have balled into fists in her lap.

“They’re one of the humanoid races of Skaro,” the Doctor says flatly, but Clara notices the way her hands are trembling, despite her best efforts to disguise it. “They became the Daleks, much later on; there was a war between them and another race, the Thals, and the biosphere of the planet was decimated with all kinds of contamination… radiation, chemicals, the lot. Davros mutated his own people, the Kaleds, to help them survive. But they… Kate, you must know… there can’t be any Kaleds left, certainly not on Skaro. You know what Davros did to them.”

“We’re hearing a lot of talk about them; receiving a lot of intelligence. They seem to be rebuilding from the ground up.”

“Are you sure you’re not mistranslating? Misunderstanding? It’s possible that you could be-”

“There is a lot of talk of, specifically, the Empress of the Kaleds,” Kate affixes her with a long, searching look. “Does that mean anything to you?”

The Doctor shakes her head. “They were governed by a totalitarian government; they didn’t have a monarchy, or anything resembling one. Are you sure about this? Are you sure they said ‘Empress’? Is there _any_ chance that you could have messed up the translation?”

“None at all. The rest of the intelligence we’ve received from these channels has proven completely accurate; our translation software can’t be failing on those words alone.”

“It’s possible,” the Doctor points out. “Look at Google Translate…”

“I like to think our linguists are more sophisticated than Google Translate,” Kate counters in a rather cool tone. “Look, all I’m asking is-”

“No.”

“What? You don’t even know what I’m going to say.”

“You want us to go to Skaro, don’t you?”

Clara feels a lurch of remembered terror at the very idea; remembers how it had felt to be placed inside a Dalek casing on Skaro. Remembers how it had felt to see the Doctor pointing a gun at her, as Missy had encouraged him to kill her. Beside her, the Doctor reaches for her hand and gives it an encouraging squeeze, seemingly reading her mind.

“Yes,” Kate says simply. “I know it’s a big ask, but we’re hearing a lot of noise about the Kaleds and we want to find out what they’re planning; what their status is; what-”

“What weapons they’re packing. You want me to serve as… what? Your envoy?” the Doctor raises her eyebrows. “Your messenger?”

“Something like that, yes.”

“I’ve never exactly been welcome on Skaro.”

“This version of you is still unknown. This version of you hasn’t permeated the wider consciousness of the universe yet. Most of the universe still thinks you’re-”

“-a man. I know. What’s in it for me?”

“The chance to prevent anything bad happening – early intervention. Intergalactic travel. Satiating your curiosity.”

“My curiosity is-”

“-burning. I can practically sense it,” Kate grins wickedly at them both. “Go on. One trip.”

The Doctor hesitates for a moment, looking from Kate to Clara and then back again.

“One trip,” she acquiesces at last, and Kate beams at her as Clara feels her stomach drop.

* * *

“I know it’s a big ask,” the Doctor says quietly, leaning back against the console, staring fixedly into space as she makes her promise, as though by doing so she might remain unmoved. “But I swear to you… I will not let anything happen to you.”

“Didn’t you say that last time?” Clara lets out a flat little laugh, but she feels a rising sense of nausea and panic at the prospect of returning to Skaro. “And look how that went. You nearly murdered me.”

“I wouldn’t have… I couldn’t have…”

“I saw the look in your eyes.”

Clara looks at the Doctor; forces her to meet her gaze. Milliseconds later, the Doctor ducks her head and looks away, turning her attention to the console.

“I thought you’d been murdered,” the Time Lady mutters. “I wanted…”

“Revenge?”

“Yes.”

“That’s not very Doctor-like of you.”

“Sometimes I’m not very Doctor-like,” the Doctor snaps. “And funnily enough, thinking that you’d been exterminated by the race who wiped out my people wasn’t a pleasant experience. Thinking that the woman I love had been murdered in front of me… that was enough to change me, yes. You should know that; you saw what the Confession Dial did to me. You want to be righteously angry at someone over what happened on Skaro? Try Missy. Try Davros. But don’t you dare make me feel like the villain of the piece for wanting revenge for your murder. Don’t you dare try to exacerbate my guilt, because I already have to live with it every day. Every day, I have to look at you and see all the ways that I’ve watched you die; I have to live with the knowledge that you’re dead, you’re technically dead, and that it’s my fault. I have to see you die, over and over and over again, and know that it was my fault, every time; know that I should have saved you, should have fought harder. Your blood is all over my hands; your blood is soaked into my skin; your blood is part of my genetic makeup now; I might as well have killed you myself, a thousand times over. So I don’t need to be reminded of the time that I once very nearly _did_ kill you myself; of the time that I nearly pulled the trigger and directly murdered you, Clara.”

Clara just stares at her, disconcerted and wrong-footed by the intensity of the Doctor’s tirade. She still remembers the claustrophobic interior of the Dalek casing; still remembers the pain of the psychic sensors as they penetrated her skull; still remembers the look on the Doctor’s face as he’d stared her down, gun pointed directly at her. She wants to argue; wants to tell the Doctor that her death had been the result of her own stubbornness, but she senses that it won’t help.

“You are not the only person,” the Doctor breathes, cutting into Clara’s recollections. “Who has experienced trauma on Skaro. My people…”

The Time Lady breaks off, bowing her head so that her hair obscures her eyes, but Clara knows the agony that must be radiating through her.

“We don’t have to go,” Clara mumbles, feeling abruptly selfish for having assumed that only she would find such a trip traumatic. “We could-”

“We promised Kate,” the Doctor says in a hard, cold voice. “And if something is happening on Skaro… we should intervene.”

“But you just said…”

“I can’t spend my life avoiding the trauma I’ve witnessed and lived, Clara,” the Doctor looks up at her then. “Or for a start, I wouldn’t be here with you.”

* * *

Landing on Skaro had been uncomfortable. The TARDIS had responded to the planet in the same way that a human might; she had refused to land, then juddered and scraped along the planet’s surface like a reluctant child dragging their heels. After the ship had eventually settled on a rocky outcrop, the Doctor and Clara had stepped out onto the planet’s burnt-ochre surface, looking across the expanse of barren ground before them as the sun beat down on them from above.

“Well,” the Doctor said after several minutes of silent contemplation. “ _That_ certainly wasn’t there last time we popped by.”

An enormous, sprawling palace had been constructed from the orange-hued rock of the planet, giving the building the strange impression that it had grown organically. There are towers and domes that seem oddly decorative; there are battlements and ramparts that give the place a militaristic air; and somewhat anachronistically, there is a large shuttle dock towards the right-hand side of the building, surrounded by large, glinting silver cannons. The entire thing seems unable to decide on its own function; it’s jarring, certainly, but not unpleasant to look at. A pair of huge, red gates marks the entrance.

“It looks… human,” Clara frowns, trying to elucidate her point more clearly. “I mean… you know, it’s not… not what you’d expect for a race of aliens. I was expecting something a bit more… I don’t know, sci-fi.”

“So was I,” the Doctor looks pensive, leaning back on her heels and grimacing. “I suppose we just… go and knock?”

“What if they shoot us?”

“Then we run,” the Doctor shoots her a mischievous grin, but Clara can see the uncertainty in her expression. “Come on…”

She holds out her hand to Clara, who takes it, and they begin to traverse the wide, open plain before the palace. Arriving at the gates, which seem to be made of a metallic element that shimmers in the harsh sunlight, the Doctor raises her fist and knocks boldly before either of them can second-guess the course of action. For several minutes, there is no response, and then a small human-sized door opens beside them and a figure steps out.

They look, at first glance, human; Clara stares at them in confusion, taking in their dark hair and dark eyes. They’re garbed in long, white robes, and there’s a weapon of some kind strapped to their hip.

“State your intent,” they say in a bored, flat voice, and the Doctor brightens up at once, puffing her chest out.

“We’re here to see your Empress.”

“Sorry?”

“Erm… your… leader? Take us to your leader, and all that.”

The stranger looks them up and down with disinterest, and then beckons them inside. Sheltered from the glare of Skaro’s suns, the interior is blissfully cool, but the soldier strides off at such a pace that the Doctor and Clara have to almost run to keep up.

“Sorry if this is racist or anything,” the Doctor manages, jogging along in their wake. “But are you a Kaled?”

The soldier lets out a yelp of bemusement, and shoots them a look that fully conveys how offensive they find this question. “Well, I’m not a Thal.”

“Sorry, it’s just… where I come from…”

“You thought us extinct?”

“Correct.”

“The… Empress…” the soldier’s mouth twists into a smirk that Clara doesn’t understand. “Will explain all.”

They draw to a halt outside a richly ornamented pair of doors inlaid with swirls of purple and silver. The soldier pushes these open and then, without warning, shoves them hard over the threshold; the Doctor keeps her balance but Clara stumbles to her knees, swears under her breath, and struggles upright with smarting knees.

They’re in a wide, high-ceilinged room bedecked in more purple and silver. There are paintings of great battles on the walls and thick purple drapes which half-conceal other doors, but Clara and the Doctor’s attention is drawn by the figure perched on a large purple throne at the other end of the room.

“ _You…_ ” the Doctor hisses, and the figure gets to their feet with a flourish, approaching them with tangible glee.

“Are you really surprised?” the Master asks, coming to a halt in front of them and reaching for the Doctor, who flinches away from his touch. “Who else did you think I would be? Davros? I’m quite offended, if I’m honest. This is very slow, even for you.”

“At this point, I’d rather Davros.”

“I’m insulted,” the Master says with great magnanimity, placing one hand over his hearts and feigning a look of great hurt. “You turn up in my house, impinge on my hospitality, bring your bloody… pet with you, and then you say you’d rather I was Davros? No, that won’t do. That won’t do at all.”

He draws a small, palm-sized device from his pocket, points it at Clara and activates it before either of them can react. Clara has the curious sensation of floating and feeling entirely disconnected from reality, and the next thing she knows, she’s laying on the floor, her limbs aching, while the Doctor swears furiously in Gallifreyan.

“Well,” the Master says with disappointment, shaking the device and then shoving it back in his pocket. “That was dull. When I vaporise people, I like them to _stay_ vaporised.”

“If you could refrain from trying to murder my partner,” the Doctor raises her eyebrows as she helps Clara scramble back to her feet, her tone casual, but Clara can feel how badly her hands are trembling. “That would be great.”

“Partner?” the Master raises an eyebrow in silent disapproval. “You actually think a pitiful little human is worthy of that role?”

“Just because you wish you were me…” Clara barbs, and he looks at her with contempt, as though appalled that she’s dared to address him.

“Don’t speak to me,” he says coldly, his expression disgusted. “Don’t even look at me. You aren’t worthy.”

“You really think you’re a god, don’t you?” the Doctor asks quietly.

“I _am_ a god,” he tells them bluntly, holding out his arms and turning slowly on the spot, as though inviting them to drink in his power. “A god of time… a god of life and death…”

“What does that make me?” the Doctor interrupts sarcastically. “A goddess?”

“No, I’d say you’re more… a monster.”

“If anyone’s a monster here, it’s you.”

“You wound me,” the Master says with mock humility, shaking his head. “Why are you even here?”

“Kate Stewart sent us.”

“Oh, that adorable little woman,” he beams in a way that manages to be both insincere and menacing. “How is she? Still not dead? I’m disappointed. I thought humans only lived for about five minutes… it must be nice, though, having an undead one to tag around after you like a dog. Do you still have to feed her? Walk her? Clean up after her?”

“She told us you were an Empress,” Clara adds, looking at the Master with as much defiance as she can muster and opting to ignore his barbs. “Of the Kaleds.”

“I told you not to speak to me,” the Master reminds her in a singsong voice, his hand straying to his pocket. “Dear me, can’t follow instructions? Not much cop for a teacher, are you? Or a pet. But you’re pretty, so I’ll answer your non-question. Speaking of which, you do understand how interrogatives work, yes? The principle of an interrogative versus a declarative statement?”

Clara remains silent, her gaze burning into his.

“Her silly little translation software muddled up the genders, but I’ll take it. I think I’d look stunning in a dress… I might have to commission one. I’d be a pretty girl, wouldn’t I? I mean, I already _was_ once… and you both seemed to think so,” he smirks, but the two women merely stare at him stonily. “The Kaleds were so in need of someone like me to dominate them; it was actually quite sad. They were just crying out for a firm hand; they’ve always had this kink for dictators, it’s quite sweet really. I’m just… scratching that itch. Doing what needs to be done. It’s actually quite altruistic of me.”

“They died out,” the Doctor points out. “Well… they became the Daleks, who-”

“You wiped out,” the Master smiles sweetly, and the Doctor flinches. “But yes, _I’m_ the terrible genocidal war criminal.”

The Doctor raises one eyebrow, refusing to rise to the bait.

“Oh, you’re no fun,” the Master pouts. “You must have been too busy during the War to hear about the Neverwhen front. The time phasing there was terrible; soldiers seeing their entire, short lives played out from beginning to end. But the Daleks started to evolve back into Kaleds, and some renegade scientists had the lovely idea to make the reversion permanent. I just sort of… got involved. Project K006. Don’t you remember that? Or was it one of your regenerations you were so keen to forget? I’d advise getting rid of the pet and doing the same with this one.”

Realisation is dawning on the Doctor’s face; realisation that Clara doesn’t understand..

“But why?” she asks quietly. “Why would you help them like that?”

“Because,” his face lights up, and he jumps up and down while clapping his hands like a dangerous, overgrown child. “Think how much fun it’s going to be when I turn them all back into the ultimate Daleks!”

“I was worried you might say that,” the Doctor says wearily. “We’re going to have to stop you, you know?”

“I’d like to see you try.”

* * *

“Kaled threat: neutralised,” the Doctor summarises, then presses ‘send’ on her extensively detailed voice note to Kate. Setting her phone down, she rests her hands on the console and leans forwards until Clara can no longer see her face, and then and only then does she speak.

“Why does he always survive?” she asks in a bitter voice. “And why do the Daleks always survive?”

“I don’t know,” Clara admits, knowing that the question is largely rhetorical but still feeling like it’s due an answer of some kind. “Fate?”

“There’s no such thing.”

“You stopped him. You stopped _them_.”

“For how long?”

“I…” Clara crosses the space between them and places her hand over the Doctor’s, drawing her away from the console and into her arms. “I don’t know. But if-”

“When.”

“ _When_ he comes back again… we’ll be ready,” Clara says decisively. “We can stop him.”

“I don’t want to be ready. I don’t want to have to keep stopping him; I’m not… I’m not the police force of the universe, and I’m not his keeper. It shouldn’t always fall to me.”

“I don’t really want to have to face him again either, but someone’s got to stop him flirting with you, and I don’t see anyone else volunteering to do it.”

The Doctor lets out a small, sad laugh. “Someone’s got to stop him vaporising you.”

“I don’t mind being vaporised; it didn’t hurt,” Clara shrugs, then grimaces. “I _do_ mind the flirting though.”

“I bet,” the Doctor smiles sadly, then says heavily: “I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t ask him to fl-”

“I meant about taking you to Skaro.”

“I survived, didn’t I?”

“Yeah,” the Doctor sighs heavily. “But the next time…”

“Doctor, you forget I’m not breakable anymore.”

“You don’t understand. He will keep developing weapons to hurt you with until he finds one that kills you.”

“Doctor…” Clara doesn’t know what to say so she wraps her arms around the Time Lady tightly, trying to provide physical reassurance, and she feels her partner melt into her arms. “We can’t worry about that now.”

“Your blood is already on my hands,” the Doctor whispers, her voice cracking. “The nightmares I have about it…”

“Don’t,” Clara murmurs, burying her head in the Doctor’s shoulder. “I’m here. I’m here, and that’s not going to change.”

“You can’t promise that.”

“I can try,” Clara looks up at her and offers her a bolstering smile. “Because I love you.”

“I love you,” the Doctor closes her eyes, and they stand in silence for several long beats, before the Doctor says more brightly: “Shall we go and get the team?”

“I think so.”

**Author's Note:**

> From the prompt:
> 
> _Clara and the Doctor are tasked by UNIT to find the whereabouts of the Empress of Skaro, who'd been the ruler of the Kaleds, the species who evolved to become the Daleks, but disappeared in the middle of the Kaled War, just as the Daleks were beginning to come into existence. They travel to Skaro to find the palace and have a whirlwind quest to find out where she disappeared to. What they find out, is shocking beyond comparison: especially for Clara._


End file.
